Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release @ 50-Yr 2013/06/10: CIA-RDP82-00046R000500310009-3 INFORMATION REPORT INFORMATION REPORT CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY This material contains information affecting the National Defense of the United States within the meaning of the Espionage Laws, Title 18, U.S.C. Secs. 793 and 794, the transmission or revelation of which in any manner to an unauthorized person is prohibited by law. COUNTRY Hungary SUBJECT Communist Educational Methods from Kindergarten to the University Level DATE OF INFO. DATE ACQUIRED REPORT NO. DATE DISTR. 28 September 1955 NO. OF PAGES 4 REQUIREMENT NO. RD REFERENCES 3-02-01+06 1114.52 9/55 37M AIR (Note: Washington distribution indicated by "X"; Field distribution by "#".) I REPORT INFORMATION REPORT Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release @ 50-Yr 2013/06/10: CIA-RDP82-00046R000500310009-3 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release @ 50-Yr 2013/06/10: CIA-RDP82-00046R000500310009-3 CONFIDENTIAL COUNTRY Hungary Communist Educational Methods from Kindergarten to the University Level 50X1 DATE DISTR. 7 Sept. 1955 NO. OF PAGES 3 REFERENCES: THIS IS UNEVALUATED INFORMATION 1. Because it was so difficult for a family to live,q* the salary of the father, most: Hungarian women were forced to work:`and to put their children into nurseries or kindergartens durieg working: hours. Because of-this, the State was able to get full control of the ohil- 3. dren at an early age. Large sums of money were spent on the construction and maintenance of nurseries and kindergartens and they were controlled and maintained by the State, the district councils, or factories and enterprises. The nurseries were available for babies from the age of three months to three years while the kindergartens were for children whose ages ranged from three to seven years. Many parents were able to place their children in the nursery operated by the faotorl'or enterprise in which they worked. When none was available, thoy,were.able to choose, between those run by their district or thoserun by the State. This cost the parents between six and 24 forints a week for one child but the cost was based on the combin d' 'salar?y. of :'the parents and on the number of dependents and childrq''n a , couple had. There were a few nurseries where young children,oould be placed for a mouth at a time. At these nurseries, children eQuld'be taken home as seldom as two weekends a month. The Budapest Capital Streetcar Company (BSZKRT), ran a nursery of this type for its employees. The total monthly cost for the maintenance of one child at this nursery was 800 forints j this sum was paid by the company and the parents.aontributed as little as 150 to 200 forints. When beginning the." education of young children, the Communists attemp *ed to developl- an undying devotion toward the Communist state in_ Hungary and toward the Soviet Union. Methods were adapted to the mental level of the child. For example, three and four-year-old children were taught one song which read in part, "....our slogan is lasting peace and you must fight for it......". By the time a child was five or six yearSold, he had been told of the comparison between the wonderful life under the Communists and the miserable conditions of the population before their"liberation`'. Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release @ 50-Yr 2013/06/10: CIA-RDP82-00046R000500310009-3 50X1 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release @ 50-Yr 2013/06/10: CIA-RDP82-00046R000500310009-3 CONFIDENTIAL - 2 - When a child entered grammar school, he was required to join the Pioneers. For the first two years, he was a "candidate"but he.-was "graduated" as a full.-fledged member in the third year and received a red scarf. Usually, the children .were _so etdited about ?" . this scarf, through the " " going graduation ceremonies, and being a? .Pioneer, with its summer camps, etc., that parents could do nothing t o counteract the Communist idtiti thhild nocrnaone cren had already received. Once a week, the Pioneers held a "pal" (pajtas).hour. During this period, older members of the group told the younger mem- bers'about-their duties-as a Pioneer and, often, gave anti-religious speeches is such a way that even if parents wanted their children to have some religious training, the children would *ot,.&ae,eph it. All of the textbooks used by first-graders is grammar school had political ooinotations; even is learning the ABCs, the letters were connected with politics. In the second rade, children were taught to compare the life of workers in capitalist countries with those in the Communist countries and, eves in such subjects as arithmetic , political connotations were found. From the fourth to the eighth grades, textbooks contained twice as much about the Soviet Union as about Hungary. Students were constantly told that the Soviet Union was the only country which represented progress and welfare aid that they should hate the Western world, particularly the US, because it was the aggressive enemy of socialism. Parents were too exhausted and troubled by,the everyday problems of living to counteract these teach- Iss and, is general, could only tell their children act to believe what they were taught at school and to instruct them not to mention anything they heard at home. 6. There were three types of high schools, i.e., humanistic, realistic, and vocational, the latter having replaced the former trade schools. All subjects taught is these schools were from. the Marx, Lenin, and Stalin points of view. Classes is Russian were compulsory. The humanistic high schools emphasized natural sciences, such as physics and ahemistry,and geography was taught in connection with the science of political economy. Many of the textbooks used in these schools were Hungarian translations of books used in the Soviet Union. These books were changed about once a year and, often, students were without any'books for months because the new editions had not been cdmp.ieted or because the Ministry of Education had not decided on the contents of the new books. 7. In Budapest, there were two Roman Catholic schools which were mot nationalized but which were controlled, to a large extent, by the State. Students at these schools were taught is both the anti-Com- musist:ic and Communistic ways. When State supervisors visited the schools, the students were always able to give the impression of know- ing their subjects taken from the State-recognized textbooks. Al- though students who graduated from these two schools could not enter a university, their parents were happy in realizing that their chil- dren had received a high standard of education and that it had been given to them in the true Hungarian and Christian spirit. 8. Since the last educational reform in Hungary, it has been very diffi- cult for high=school graduates to eater a university because quotas were set up for students from different social backgrounds, such as the peasant, worker, and intellectual. Students who were admitted under the first group were former workers or peasants who, without any secondary or high-school education, had Wraduated from special schools which had "special matriculation courses . For several years, the universities were crowded with these special students and move ever failed their examinations because the teachers were blamed when they failed a student. As a result of this, educational standards continued to sink even lower. Several times, students at the E8tv0-s Loriiind University of Philosophy protested against these very low -.,standards of university education and,as a resultgwere accused by the CONFIDENTIAL Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release @ 50-Yr 2013/06/10: CIA-RDP82-00046R000500310009-3 50X1 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release @ 50-Yr 2013/06/10: CIA-RDP82-00046R000500310009-3 CONFIDENTIAL -3- Communists of being reactionaries for not understanding the extreme difficulties encountered by these special graduates.- - - -r - ----~...... ~..... ~W'cir - vi :at.--- producisg unqualified university graduates and, at that time, teachers were given permission to fail an student who ' sot past as xamisatios. According to aw.assistast pro- fessor at the Budapest Technical s vers ty, 6O per oent'of the stu- dents at the Faculty of Railroad Construction failed to th i pass e r examinations. The same thing happened is the grammar, secondary, and source that the had failed seven out of of her f h~students be fRbeca w~,a they could not read and write. cauus se 10. Although as attempt was apparently being made to raise the educational standard to the pre-World War II level, it is source's opinion that this cannot be dose for several years and until a few more reforms have bees made. All of the faculties at the Budapest Teohiisal Usi- versity have bees so specialized that, whereas is the past, a civil es iseer received a diploma which qualified him is structural, road asd railway, brid a and canal construction, eto., these subjects have now been separated aid as individual can graduate is any ass of them. U. 'Marxism was the principal subject taught by every university faculty, including those of the technical universities, and its teaoiag was enforced by the "education responsible and the Association of Worlds Youth. The Russian language was also oompulsory. A student who studied Hungarian literature had two hours of that subject, four hours of Ru?- sias, aid six hours of Marxism each week. Although students hated to study Marxism and polities, they were forced to do so aid, after a while, some eves got interested is it and became idealistic Marxists is ?pite of the fact that they had experienced the opposite of Marxist teachings in their everyday life. In most eases, students did not accept every thesis of Marxist ideology and they believed that Commu- nism could be achieved is other ways. In general, they rejected Western economic systems and looked down on be culture of the US as well as that of the Soviet tUsios. CONFIDENTIAL 50X1 Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release @ 50-Yr 2013/06/10: CIA-RDP82-00046R000500310009-3

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